How to Set Goals

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How to Set Goals

You cannot achieve a goal, you have never set. Therefore, it is important to think about your goals and commit them to paper or smart phone. The following formula can be used for both work-related and personal goals.

Let us start by writing a work-related goal, answering the following questions in as much detail as possible.

1. In relation to your work life, what goal do you want to achieve? Write a general statement of positive intent.

2. Thinking about the statement above, can you define the statement numerically? Are there any quantities, amounts, times, or percentages that would be applicable to quantify your original statement of the goal?

3. Regarding the goal statement in point 1, please write a more elaborate written description of what your goal is. Be specific.

4. Measurement. What are the key factors of the goal that you could track, in order to note whether you were making progress, or not making progress or going backwards?

5. Achievable. In order to achieve the goal, what skills, knowledge, information or other personal attributes, will you need to develop? Write a list of these skills or personal attributes that you need to develop to achieve the goal.

6. Realistic. What external resources will you need to assemble to achieve your goal? Resources are things such as money, equipment, technology, permissions and help from other people.

7. Time deadline. What is the timeline, associated with this goal? What is the deadline? By when do you want to have achieved this goal.

8. Timeline reality check. Is this time line reasonable? Is it do-able? You must give yourself sufficient time to achieve the goal. Don't be over optimistic. But don't be too generous with your timeline either. Make your timeline "possible but challenging".

Now you have all the information assembled, you can write your plan of action. Write down what you have to do, with whom, by when and how.

Congratulations. You now have a specific goal and a detailed written plan.

You are welcome to use our FREE Goal Setting questionnaire to help you commit your goals to paper.

Goal Setting Training

Goal Setting, Communication and Conflict.

You cannot achieve the goal you failed to set. So the first step to achieving your goal is to set it.
Then you need to communicate the goal to others and you need to handle the inevitable conflicts and problems you will get whenever you try implement your plans. This course will help.

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Further Reading in Goal Setting

• How to achieve your personal goals
  Personal goal setting We all have different ideas of what constitutes success, don't we? For one person success might mean lots of money in the bank; and for another person success might mean being famous, and for you it might mean the achievement of your current project. But we all want...
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• Achievable Goals
  You are defined by your goals and your goals define you. To realise your goals, you need to ensure that they are both achievable as well as realistic. Do you know the difference between achievable and realistic goals?
  Read Article >
• How to Set Goals
  Goals are essential to success, since success means the achievement of a goal. But the first step to achieving a goal, is to actually set one in the first place! Find out how to set achievable goals with our goal-setting formula.
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• SMART goals
  SMART goals If you want to be successful then you must achieve your goals. If you want to be happy then you must achieve your goals. "Success" can be defined as "the achievement of a worthwhile goal". "Happiness" can be defined as: "a positive emotional state that you feel when you...
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• Professional development: Setting goals
  How to set goals Here is the all-important question: Are you a goal focused individual or are you more often a drifter? Some people are drifters. You may even have a drifter working in your organisation. You might even know him personally. You can always recognise the drifter: In the mornings...
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